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Natural learning
Students acquire traditional skills at cultural camp

Derek Neary
Northern News Services

Fort Simpson (Jun 23/00) - A group of students learned fishing from start to finish at a cultural camp earlier this month.

The Bompas elementary students participated in the camp during the first two weeks of June. They learned to make their own fishing rods and hooks, how to properly clean the jackfish they plucked from the river, and then made dry fish.

They also set snares, made dreamcatchers from willow bark, willow fishnets, and learned about traditional medicines such as spruce gum and Labrador tea.

Elders Mary Cazon and Mary Tsetso provided much of the traditional knowledge. Andrew Tsetso, Edward Cholo and Mike Cazon were also present as resource people at the site, which is the former home of the Tonka family and had once been a gathering place for hand games and drum dances.

Cazon and Tsetso even showed the students how to make traditional diapers by drying moss.

If the youth ever get lost, they should also know where to find water now. Cazon explained that by digging a hole in the muskeg and then placing spruce boughs inside, "the water will come out just clear."

The experience was a pleasure for Cazon, who spends a great deal of her time in the bush.

"I really enjoyed it. Even though it rained, nobody complained. We all worked together," she said. "Those kids are lucky some elders are still around to help them. What they see is better than talking, they learn more."

Mary Jane Nayally, the Slavey instructor at Bompas, said the students do a lot of repetition of Dene words and phrases in the classroom, but the natural camp environment reinforces what they've learned.

"We're trying to incorporate a lot of the language when we're doing our activities," Nayally said.

After clearing out the campsite, students spent part of the final day making bows and whittling arrows. They also found a variety of insects -- and debated their merits and degree of repulsiveness.

Brandon Norwegian said the camp instructors taught him "how to go fishing, how to take down the camp and how to set up the camp."

Bekkie Bertrand said she never realized so much wood is needed for camp structures and for the fire. She also was intrigued by the method of catching fish with a spear.

For Skyler Tanche, the lesson on natural foods available in the bush made an impression.

"If there's nothing to eat in the forest, you can eat flowers," he said. He added it's also possible to fashion an axe out of wood, sinew and rock.

As the rest of the students left for the riverside to be taken back across by boat, Stephanie Squirrel and Vicki Antoine scraped a birch tree for a final taste of its sweet sap.

"I think this is the best part about the camp," Squirrel told a beckoning Mary Jane Nayally. "It tastes like honey dew."